Subtitles

Okay, I'm totally supposed to be studying for my anatomy+physiology midterm, but I had to take a few minutes to write about this.

I was waiting for my order at Tim Hortons, and the next two people approached the counter to place their order. There was some back-and-forth about what beverage they wanted, and it became obvious that the two customers were hearing-impaired, with one woman communicating with the cashier, then relaying messages to her companion in sign language.

To my great surprise and utter delight, the young woman behind the counter started to subtitle the beverage options using fingerspelling! Now, I can fingerspell, too, but not with any sort of fluency.

I was quite impressed, and watching the subtitled exchange made my day. :)

我應該乖乖地看書，因為要考解剖學與生理學，但想花幾分鐘講一下今天下午發生的一件事情。

那時在 Tim Hortons (一家咖啡店) 等我點的三明治；後面兩位女士走到櫃檯點餐。 她們與櫃檯小姐問答來回了幾次，才知道兩位客人是重聽者：一位女士跟櫃檯小姐談話，再用手語轉達給她的伴。

令我吃驚又愉快的是，櫃檯小姐就開始用手語拼出飲料選擇！ 我也會用手語拼字，但不太熟練，不像她那麼流利！

這件事使我感動；能觀看這一段有 "字幕" 的對話讓我今天開心到了。 :)

-er or -ee?

I was looking up a synonym for the verb "to manage" at one of my favourite sites, Merriam-Webster, and among other definitions, it offered

1b: to treat with care: husband.

Huh? Intrigued, I clicked and found the transitive verb "to husband":

Main Entry: ²husband
Function: transitive verb
Date: 15th century

1 a: to manage prudently and economically b: to use sparingly : conserve
2archaic : to find a husband for : mate
— hus·band·er noun

Interesting..... So, who husbands who in a marriage? Is the man labelled the husband because he husbands or because he is husbanded? Husbander or husbandee.... All a mystery......

Evolution

There's something to be said for the evolution of the written language.

I saw a character 雦 the other day, didn't know what it was. So I asked my coworker and we started doing some research (okay, she searched while I sat next to her), we found the following ensemble:

• 隹 (zhuī) - kind of bird
  
• 雔 (chóu) - pair of birds
  
• 雦 (jí/chóu) - to gather; archaic form of 集 (jí)
  
• 雥 (zá) - flock of birds
  
• 雧 (jí) - to gather (birds in a tree); another archaic form of 集

Isn't that neat?? Two birds? Just double the radical! More than that? Add another bird! And then put them all in a tree (木)!

How clever is that! =)

(Okay, maybe only a language buff like myself would fully appreciate this.)

Select the least incorrect answer

Being a native English speaker, I was originally exempt from taking the TOEIC exam at work, but this morning I received an e-mail from my two-up manager saying that everyone in our department had to sit the exam after all, and so I arranged with HR to let me into the examination room.

The listening section was... slightly boring. To the point that my mind started wandering, hahaha. Oops.

And the reading section was... perplexing. The written questions had errors in them. Not just the "choose what's wrong" type of questions, I'm referring to the fill-in-the-blank questions and others, too. I started chuckling, which probably didn't help relax the other colleague in the room.

Let me give you an example of how ridiculous it was; I copied this down from the exam. Multiple choice question, choose one part of the sentence that should be corrected or rewritten:

(A) There's at least several of reasons that (B) explained why the sales manager (C) has quitted his job that (D) is envied by most people in the office.

Gee, can I select (A), (C), and other errors not listed in the choices?!

All in a Name

Before I moved to Taiwan, I was under the impression that Asian immigrants only choose "boring" English names. Common names that occur in a classroom 2 or 3 times: Danny, David, Michael, Jerry, Johnny. Jenny, Cindy, Amy, Julie.

Boy was I ever wrong.

Turns out Asians can be rather creative when choosing English names. And turns out that browsing the company phone directory can be quite entertaining.

We have famous people who work here: Gauss, Morse, Dior, Gucci, Yanni, Yoda.

And then we have...

AceBest AOK Bear Bigfox Culture - given name translated literally Double - given name has the family name repeated! Dragon Ericbill - guess they couldn't decide? Forever - Chinese name has the word "ever" Frog - uh... I got nothin' Frost Gene - 2 with this name; does that make it a Gene pool? Magic Megaa - complete with echo! Milk

MIT - show-off Mtjade - named after the mountain... "Mt." included! Nivea - walking advertisement Ripple Showermi - how forward! Singing Smallp - um. Shock Testy - UM. Tobaccoo Twodogs Walksky - kinda like Skywalker, but no copyright infringement Wealth - clear goals in life Wego - where?

(Note: These are all taken from the company directory. Just a subset of "interesting" names. And I didn't list any names that were Chinese names written in English, only literal translations.)

I know about a third of the people above, and they're very nice people.

Now I realize that people are free to take on any name they please. However, this name is used for their corporate e-mail address. So maybe they should put more thought into finding a name that will represent them professionally, instead of choosing an alias for a BBS/forum.

And perhaps HR should consider having a name book on hand for when new employees report to work.